Arisen into Darkness
by Wolf-Shadow's-Ghost
Summary: Death is a powerful force, it is inevitable, inescapable and terrifying, the one single thing that all mortal creatures truly share in common. Unless a god intervenes in the life of one such mortal, and in doing so, brings forth a new age of fire and ruin. Highly AU from both game cannon and from my 'Amusement' series, dark one-shot. Warning: character death, blood, some angst.


Also known as** 'Bad Kitty' **

High AU, **NOT** part of the main 'Amusement' cannon, but a rather interesting experiment and character study. I will be returning to the main story, both 'Amusement', and the pre-Amusement stories (such as Dragon Amid Wolves) shortly.

Hope you all enjoy this interesting darkness.

Trigger Warning: Some blood, character death.

This and my other Skyrim Works can be found at my main Tumblr and on my Secondary fan fiction tumblr, usernames are Wolf-Shadow and Dovah-Se-Lovass respectively.

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"No!" Aela fell to her knees, dragon scale knee-guards sliding on the slick mountain trail. "No no no." she breathed, her bow slipping from a numb grip, her fingers reaching down to slide between golden strands of hair drowning in a pool of red. "Nononono, Draden, please."

Trembling hands drug Draden's head into her lap, one held onto the dragonborn's too pale face and the other reached out to hover over the great red pulp that her lover's midsection had become.

Draden's breath came in gargling gasps and fresh blood dribbled from between her lips, her eyes were glazed and they watched some far off thing Aela couldn't see, some that wasn't of their moment, not of the battlefield of dragon corpses and fire.

"Aela you-" Draden started weakly and then coughed, send red warm flecks of blood across Aela's face.

"Shut it," Aela snapped, her fingers fumbling out Draden's travel pouch from a hidden compartment in her armor. "Damn fool," she whispered, shoving her whole shaking hand down into the bag and willing the enchantment to give her what she wanted. "Jumping in front of that dragon, what were you thinking?" she felt a brief burning elation as her fingers brushed cool glass.

Drawing in an uneven gasp, Draden tried to smile up at Aela, more blood pouring out of the huge gouges the teeth had torn in her, down through her armor and right into her body "You're safe?" she managed through a mouthful of her own blood, her voice, normally so lilting and fluid it was like honey and wine to Aela's ears, was barely above a hoarse whisper, cracked and broken on the words.

"I'm fine! I would have been fine!" she retorted, ignoring the piles of bones all around them, the still smoldering brush and scorched earth. Her fingers withdrew and she found herself staring at several small vials of blue liquid. Not the right color.

There had to be red, somewhere in the pouch, it was just reading her wrong, she had to focus.

"that's… what I was thinking-" Draden coughed and her whole body jerked with the strain. "keep you safe…"

"The one dragon left," Aela chastised, maddened fingers digging through the pouch, her other hand stroking Draden's hair, white hot panic in her blood. "the last one out of a group of seven, and that's when you decided to jump right into a dragon's mouth."

"Gave me, good shot at his brain though," Draden's skin was cold, and white as fresh snow. "killed him, saved you, works for me…" her sentence trailed into a wheeze.

Aela's fingers withdrew more blue magicka potions and she swore. "Fine, you'll have to use your damned mage powers, drink this." She let go of Draden's hair and managed to pop the cork off one potion, despite her shaking hands.

She placed the glass against Draden's ashen lips and helped lift her wife's head up so that she could swallow the potion down. Draden coughed and purple came from between her teeth, a sickening mix that stood out starkly from the red.

Aela grabbed another potion, forced it to Draden's lips, trying to see through the layers of water that gathered in her eyes. "Now heal yourself, foolish bard, close those wounds."

Draden's hands glowed weak gold, and the tears in her body glimmered faintly. Slowly, the edges of skin started to move, growing together.

To slow.

Draden's thick blood still gushed from her.

"Come on, love, come on." Aela urged, sick black dread rolling in her belly. "You aren't arch mage for nothing, come on."

Draden choked, coughing harshly as the light around her fingers flickered, and died. "Aela I-"

"NO!" both her hands framed Draden's face and their gazes met, her eyes boring into Draden's and soft droplets of water falling upon the dragonborn's face, Aela's tears cutting through the thick red blood and down to the stained war paint the bard always wore. "Don't you dare, don't you dare quit! Not after all this! Deep healing yourself! Draden please!" Aela sobbed the last word, her throat catching, clogged by ash and the stench of burnt bodies and death, by the agonizing fear that tore through her. "Don't leave please, love, please, keep healing."

Draden managed a soft, distant smile, one weak hand reaching up to stroke Aela's arm. "I can't, I've lost too much blood, I-" she coughed once. "even if I had the strength to heal myself, too much blood gone…"

"Draden I- please, stay with me, I love you, please, please." Aela's heart was tearing inside her chest mind pleading with any Divines or Deadra above for this not to happen, her wolf whined and paced, unable to help. "Please." She begged "Don't leave me."

"I love you, so much." Draden's voice was distant, but heartfelt. "More than I knew it was possible to love someone, you are… so amazing, and this isn't fair." Her breath left in a harsh wheeze and came back with a struggled gasp, her words were a battle that she fought with pride. "I am so, so sorry Aela, so sorry, but you're safe, I'm not sorry for that. I-" her eyes lost focus and her hand loosened. "I love you, I'll see you again…"

Her last word was nothing but a breath, one that faded and did not come back. Her hand slipped from Aela's arm and lolled onto the wet earth. Burnished silver eyes flickered once, and then stilled.

Draden's heart stopped.

Aela's shattered.

And she screamed.

"Mama!"

The high voice broke through her mind and she felt her arm being shaken vigorously, little pinpricks of pain accompanying every movement.

"Mama! Mama! Wake up! You're dreaming again!"

Aela's breath caught painfully in her throat and she jerked awake, eyes snapping open to deep gloom and cold stone air. She pressed one forearm against the bare stone bed and quickly sat up, ignoring the burning pain that came from the pressure against her skin.

The same nightmare, again, at least once a week for years.

Not a nightmare, if only fate were that kind, instead of supplying her darkest memory that she forcibly relived in stark clarity, over and over again.

"Mama?" a hesitance voice broke her from her sleep dazed state, and she looked down.

Aela smiled wearily at the form of her tiny daughter standing uncertainly before her, small hands caught up in the hem of her frost troll hide tunic, twisting the white fur in her delicate fingers.

She reached out and tucked one long strand of strawberry blonde hair behind her daughters ear, thumb gently stroking the little plump cheek. "I'm alright Lifa, just the same old dream."

Lifa bite at her lower lip, tiny baby teeth almost too small for her mouth now. "You were mumbling again Mama, and you're crying." Her voice was soft and hesitant.

Blinking, Aela reached one hand to her own cheek, fingertips brushing across the raised brands in her skin and finding wetness there, she withdrew her hand and stared idly as the water across her skin. She shook her head and smiled soothingly. "It's alright pup, it happens, but I'm alright."

Lifa's little mouth twitched at the corners and her silver eyes narrowed in a mirror of in expression that was painfully familiar, the girl studying her for a long moment.

"Come here," Aela smile was full and genuine as she opened her arms wide, and her expression only grew when Lifa didn't hesitate to step into the hug. "It's all okay my little one, I love you."

"Love you too Mama." Lifa mumbled against her chest, inquisitive five year old fingers tracing the gold lines that criss-crossed Aela's collarbone.

She basked in the moment, letting the heat of her daughters little body chase the last fragments of the memory away, her fingers threading through her daughters long hair and stroking it with loving tenderness.

"One of the men came to the door Mama."

Lifa's words made her hand freeze mid stroke, and she felt herself harden at the words.

"Which one?"

Lifa shifted in her grip to look uneasily up at her. "I'm… not sure Mama, I can't tell, they all scare me."

Aela only nodded, wishing she didn't have to reinforce that fear in her daughter, wishing she could tell her it was just a figment of her imagination that she had nothing to fear.

Like other mothers did for their daughters.

But she couldn't.

"He whispered through the door, said that _She _asked for you." Lifa's voice was low and wary and she pressed herself tightly against Aela. "You have to go, don't you?"

Sighing, Aela hugged Lifa closer and then slowly released her grip. "I'm afraid so, pup. I have work to do."

Lifa stood back as Aela took to her feet and stretched, worn furs keeping the chill of the black stone place at bay.

"I hate it when you go, it's too quiet." Lifa confessed, her eyes trailed on the ground. "and you always come back so sad, it's better when you hunt."

Her heart ached at her daughter's words, and she quickly knelt to kiss Lifa on the forehead. "You know what I do is important. I'm sorry it has to take me away from you, my little light." she thought for a moment and then tapped Lifa lightly on the nose "Tell you what, when I get back I'll read you your favorite book, okay?"

Lifa's eyes lit up, another painful mirror image that made Aela want to laugh and cry at the same time.

"As many times as I want?"

She managed a laugh, a real one, and patted her daughter's head. "Yes, Lifa, I'll read you 'A Journey Home' as many times as you want me too, you can even read me a bit too, how does that sound?"

Lifa threw her arms around Aela's neck in a bear hug, giggling all the while, Aela laughed again holding her girl close as she stood up and started her short walk through silent halls.

All too soon, she stood before a great set of black double doors, their intricately carved stonework marred by a heavy ward that glowed brightly in the gloom, a last gift from an old friend.

She set Lifa down on the floor and knelt before her again, all traces of playfulness gone. "Now, you remember the rules?"

"Yes Mama." Lifa sighed and screwed up her little mouth.

"What are they?" She prompted, lips pursed.

"No climbing on tall things I shouldn't, no crawling into little spaces where I might get stuck, no over eating or trying to make to cook fire. No playing with _any_ of your weapons. And I'm never, ever, supposed to let anyone into the temple, ever."

"That's right, only you and I are allowed in here, nobody else ever. What else?"

"I'm never, ever, supposed to try and leave the temple, there are bad things through both doors." Lifa glanced at the door in question and shuddered minutely.

"Good girl," Aela praised, tapping Lifa on the nose, "Stay here, stay safe. You can play with your toys and draw with the coal sticks I make you, read your books and take naps. I know it's boring," she added when she say Lifa's eyes glaze a bit, "and I'm sorry, we'll work on things you can do by yourself when I get back, okay?"

"Okay Mama," Lifa sighed and scooted in for another hug, her little head resting in the crook of Aela's neck. "hurry back soon okay?"

She rubbed Lifa's back and breathed in the scent of her daughter, reassuring herself that she was there, she was safe.

"Okay, I will. Now go on, head back to the room. I've got to go." She kissed Lifa on both checks and stroked her hair one last time.

Lifa managed a small smile and slowly walked back down the dim hall, casting looks over her shoulder the whole way.

Aela waited until she was sure her daughter had settled in their shared room before turning to the door. She placed one hand one the cold stone and watched impassively as the ward turned from red to blue, and the door opened a fraction of an inch.

She pushed it fully open and a blast of icy wind stole her breath, but she quickly and resolutely stepped through, slamming the door shut behind her as fast as humanly possible. Reassured when she heard the slightly hum of the locking ward start up again.

The almost abandoned courtyard of High Hrothgar stood before her, the snow the color of fresh ash under the constantly grey sky and the wind howling mercilessly around her. Across the yard and a little way's up the hill, she spotted the ragged form of a priest suspended mid air, his tattered robes flickering in the wind.

Head high, Aela started across the yard and made her way up the hill, the pain of the brands across every inch of her skin redoubled in the aching cold. She could see them glitter gold in the faint light that was cast over the land, the mark of _her_.

It was Krosis who hovered alongside the path, his ancient mask slightly askew on his undead form. He gave no indication that he noticed her passing, and she paid him no mind. The affairs of the resurrected dragon priests where none of hers, and they knew better than to meddle with her, the _favorite._

The path to the top of the Throat of the world was clear and barren of any life, living or undead, and her mind took the moment of silence to wonder through her memories, her choices and regrets.

She should have run, should have fled to the south and taken her chances there. At least she would have birthed her daughter into freedom, even if it was clouded by fear. Here and now, it was a chained life that was still fearfully guarded. She'd gambled, and in the long run, had lost, now she tried to make the best of it, for all their sakes.

She crested the last rise sooner than she wanted, and found herself in the final plateau of the mountain, the center of attention for half a dozen dragons that lingered on the mountainside. She ignored them all and resolutely strode forward through the heavy snow.

Only to hesitate slightly when she passed by a large, irregular shape in the snow drifts, remembering the noble creature the pile used to be.

"You always mourn him each time you pass him by, Mal Grohiik Kiim."

The rumbling voice shook her to her bones as it always had, as it always would, and Aela steeled herself before looking up to the crumbling dragon wall, and the huge golden creature poised atop it.

"Why is that?" the voice asked with slight amusement, though it's owner did not turn from gazing across the landscape of Skyrim below, the huge back full of jagged spikes facing Aela. "You'd never even once met him in life."

It was always a dance, a little game they played, though in the end Aela never stood a chance, never had an ounce of power or influence.

She was a whisper of good conscious in a tumultuous roar of primal emotion.

"I know what he stood for, and I admire his life for that, I mourn the loss of both him and his message." She stated calmly, stopping a few yards away from the wall.

The massive gold dragon chuckled, her scales glimmering bright even in the gloom, glimmering like the brands of ownership, of protection from all other dragons, across Aela's form. "You joor and your sentimentally, always mourning for a past that is gone, dead and buried, just like Paarthurnax there."

"A wise woman once taught me that we can learn from the past to be better people." She returned, her insides hollow and cold, devoid of the hope that had carried her on for years.

High above her, the dragoness lifted her huge head and twisted it back on her long neck, a single slitted eye catching Aela's gaze. It's color that of burnished silver.

All at once, as though she'd been hit with a memory spell, years of painful memories flickered through her mind…..

Starting again at the nightmare she awoke from this morning. Of cradling her wife's dead body and sobbing harder than she'd ever had her whole life. More than when her mother died, more than when Kodlack had been killed.

And then Draden's blood, soaking the ground red and staining her skin and coating her armor, started glowing.

It turned gold, and flickering light swirled from it. Draden's skin began to glow, first gold, then purple, white, and gold again, the brilliant spectrum of hues Aela had seen whenever her love had taken the soul of a dragon.

The bones of said dragons that littered the battlefield around them began to rattle, and crack, the scales began to shimmer and roil on the round, the sound like rain against a roof.

Draden's body began to glow so brightly it was impossible to look at, and then it started to float, lifting up and away from the ground and Aela's grip.

She'd shielded her eyes and stumbled back, fear and the smallest sliver of hope warring in her chest as dragon bones and scales lifted from the earth and started to swirl around the miniature sun that her wife's body had become. There was a horrible, earth-shaking, humming roar that built in her ears until she thought her ears would burst.

And then for a split second, the sound stopped, and she dared to glance from behind her hands, to look at the light. She saw Draden's glowing silhouette suspended mid air, superimposed over the skeleton of a massive dragon, one three times larger than any Aela had ever seen.

Then the world exploded.

She was thrown harshly backwards, crashing into and then tumbling over the hard ground, a cry of pain escaping her lips, her ears ringing.

When her body stilled and her mind cleared enough to think, she had pressed herself up from the comfort of the earth, and found herself in the presence of a massive golden dragoness. One who watched her with idle interest.

"I am not the one you remember," the dragoness had spoken before Aela could even begin to form cohesive thought. "The joor that this soul once was is no more, I am the daughter of Akatosh, risen again by my father, and I am here to reclaim his lands."

She had impassively open her wings and lifted from the ground in two strong beats, the force of the wind enough to beat painfully against Aela's battered form.

Aela's throat unstuck and she reached a hand up towards this new creature, this… incarnation of the woman she loved. "Draden, please!" she had yelled.

The dragon had hesitated, then replied. "Draden lies as dead upon the earth as Alduin, I am Krentsolgahrot, Broken Soul Stealer, and the rightful ruler of this world!" she had roared once, the loudest sound Aela ever endured, and took to the skies.

The next months had been nothing but fire.

Alduin had been content to raise his dragons and toy with the world, this new monster had no interest in biding her time, and soon the sky was filled with dragons of all colors.

Death and destruction were the rule of the day, and like most of the Companions, Aela did her best to help anyone escape the doomed land of Skyrim. She told no one that Draden had become the monster in the sky, her wife's memory was better kept as a martyr that died trying to take this new beast down, she'd sacrificed too much in life to be remembered as the death dealing dragon in the skies.

Escort after escort Aela made, taking people along the paths of deer and wolves at night to avoid the dragons, all fleeing southward towards what they hoped was safety, she took them as far as she could, and another escort would meet them to guide the people the last of the way to Cyrodiil. but always, Aela turned back and went north meeting with what was left of the Companions to try and take another group safely southward. Day after day, week after week….

Until her sick and tiredness could no longer be passed off as grief, and she was forced to visit a harried healer. Who pronounced her pregnant with all the flair of one delivering a daily newspaper.

A baby, a new life in this new world of fire and death.

The last true piece of Draden that existed in her life.

She cried herself to sleep for nearly a week.

A mad idea had struck her on a night the week following. A crazed hope that she could not let go of no matter how hard she tried.  
Perhaps she could curb this madness, this rampant destruction of her homeland. Some part of her love must still live on in the dragon's furious mind, could she rekindle it? Could she bring a bit of Draden back?

Her and their child?

She'd lied to the last of her family, to the last of the Companions, telling them she was fleeing too, that she had her unborn to think about and that she'd try heading to Morrowind, hoping to find refuge in the dunmers miles of underground city scapes and dwemer ruins.

They'd bid her farewell with tired smiles and hugs, blessing her and her child, giving her supplies and saying they'd see her again.

She'd told them she loved them, said it aloud in words, and when the tears gathered she blamed it on her pregnancy, and they'd shared a laugh. The last one they'd ever have together.

Setting out after dark had prevented the need for her to pretend to head east, and so with a pack of supplies, she'd made her way right to the heart of the dragon land, to the Throat of the World.

One long and perilous journey later, after many close encounters with numerous dragons. She found herself in the temple of High Hrothgar, the inside blackened with dragon fire, and the only sill living soul being a badly wounded Arngeir.

She'd helped him as much as she could, told him the tale of her wife and the monster that had taken over, and he'd mourned, proclaimed that the gods must have given them up to let Akotosh turn one so great in to such a beast…. and then he'd stopped talking.

He'd lived long enough to ward the doors for her, a powerful spell that was tuned to her blood and her blood alone. And then he'd passed in his sleep.

A month passed, and then two, she'd grown restless, terrified, and heavy, her wolf pressured her to stay in the temple, her den, and only venture out for food, hunting down the numerous frost trolls that haunted the mountain, but her human side longed to be doing something, anything, to ease the suffering she knew was happening in the world below.

Six months pregnant with a squirmy baby she wasn't quite prepared for, she'd thrown caution to the wind, and carefully climbed to the peak.

In hindsight, she probably should have been eaten or burnt to a crisp the moment she reached the top, but perhaps the dragons resting there had been far too shocked to react quickly enough, or too amused to do so at all.

"Well, well, if it isn't the joor that loved me in a past life." Dra- no, not Draden, not anymore, Krentsolghrot had chuckled from her perch. "You are a brave one, though I don't remember you being so foolish."

Aela managed to press her fear back, suppress her wolf who was begging her to turn and run, for the sake of her child if nothing else, and she slowly made her way to the wall. Feeling the eyes of every dragon upon her as she went.

Krentsolghorot lowered her huge head and stared at Aela, her eyes unblinking, and the shade caught Aela's attention.

"What is it that's brought you to the heart of my lands, and so…" she'd blinked and sniffed once. "heavy with young at that?"

"I, I've come to talk to you." She had known any show of weakness would be her death, and the death of her unborn, so she forced herself to stand tall and strong.

"Oh? What an amusing prospect. Why should I listen, why shouldn't I just kill you now?" the question had been perpetually amused, though Aela didn't doubt the underlying malice.

"Because you once loved me, because I think a small part of you still loves me, or at least remembers loving me." She had felt the dragons around her shifting closer and could see them watching her with interest out of the corner of her eyes. When the golden dragoness said nothing, she pressed. "because the unborn in my womb is of you, of the body you use to inhabit, the body that is still part of you."

The dragoness had chuckled, a low sound that chilled Aela's skin. "You are bold, Draden did like that about you."

Aela had to bite her tongue to keep from snapping back, it was hard to see anything of her love in the huge monster before her, but her eyes….

"While your hopes are as amusing as they are foolish, you have peaked my interest," Krentsolghorot had slunk of the walk and moved closer to Aela, her wing tips brushing the wall and the side of the mountain at the same time, the small space not quite accommodating her great size, "So speak, little wolf."

"I, had hoped to find you, to talk to you." She felt her child move, remembered what she had witnessed in the land below. "To see if any of my love remained in the… creature you have become. To ask you to remember who you were and stop this insanity."

The dragons had recoiled back at her words, moving away as though they feared getting caught in the crossfire, but Krentsolghorot remained still save for her gusting breaths.

"Insanity?" she had asked after a long moment. "this is destiny, this is what I was risen for. You say you loved me, but you would deny me my true birthright?" the twisting words cut and burned, laced with amusement and mockery.

"What are you doing but destroying the very world you fought so hard to save?" her voice rose, and her breath came out as cold clouds that drifted away in the winter chill. "Why do this after all it took to defeat Alduin? After all your struggle and hardship? Why would you throw all what you have done away now?" her voice had risen after each question, until she was shouting at the dragoness, her stance wide and defensive.

Krentsolghorot chuckled again. "My but you are a bold little Joor, you're far more amusing than any of my loyal Dov," Aela could feel the dragons wordlessly withdraw further from the circle. "and far more amusing than any other joor that I have yet come across. I think I remember why the Draden Dragonborn was so very much in love with you." Her head had risen and she had stared down at Aela imperiously. "I do not have to answer to anyone, least of all to a mere joor…. But I will admit that a part of me has missed interesting conversation, so I will answer. I am not destroying the world, my father-god's favored son, the World Eater, was short sighted and bound to do what he was bid. I, however…" and she flexed her huge wings, "am here to reclaim the Dov's lost glory, to remind the joor of their place and to _rule my world._"

There was a rumble of approval from all around them, and Aela had to will herself not to take a step back.

"Why?" She cried again "Why destroy and enslave us? Can you see the pain and horror you are bringing? You're murdering those you strove to protect! Do you remember nothing of your time as Draden? As a leader and a noble woman? Does that mean nothing to you now?"

"No, it does not." Came the flat reply. "The last Dragonborn was noble in her pursuits, you are correct, but she was foolish. The races of the joor have been warring with each other since they first learned to hold weapons. After the first fall of the dov, the mixed races below have only learned better ways to kill one another, for reasons just as trivial as they were at the dawning of their time." Krensolghorot flexed her body, her huge back spines chittering against one another as she moved. "I will amalgamate all mortals under one rule, under my wings and talons, for their differences make them interesting, but their unworthiness under their betters, the dov, unites them better than any vanished gods."

With a final bored look down her snout Krensolghorot had begun to turn from Aela, back to the wall, and the clatter of claws against mountain rock told her that the dragons were pressing closer, probably to….

"So that's it then? You'll recreate the tyranny of Alduin? Enslave us all and live as a beast-god?" Aela challenged, her voice stronger than she felt. "Your reign will be nothing but a copy of the dragon that failed to keep control."

Krensolghorot paused and tilted her head to glance back down.

"For all your words, you are nothing but an oversized recolor of the failure that Draden ended," Aela pressed on, anger and panic coursing stronger and stronger through her veins with each word. "Just another monster that burns and destroys for the pleasure of it, you are no god, you are a monster, even the Daedric Princes have more intent than that!"

"Mmmm, but why wish for anything more? I hold the world in my claws, to my every whim, that is something that all the Daedric Princes envy and vie for in nearly every second of their existence." Krensolghorot returned, though Aela heard a touch of real interest in her words.

"By use of fire and destruction and death! You would rule only because of the ruin you bring!"

"And why not? We Dov speak the first language, we common the world, the elements, and even time itself, and it obeys us without question. We are power incarnate, and what is power but a means to conquer?"

"So you would rule with the same mindless brutality that drives a sabercat to kill his own male young? That drives bears with different color pelts to kill each other on sight?" she had scoffed, "You may speak and you may hold some reason in your mind, but your actions betray you for the simple beasts you are."

With a low rumble that was either a threatening growl or a sound of interest, Krensolghorot had lowered herself back to Aela's level and watched her with an appraising gaze. "Given how the joor have conducted their dynasties, their empires and their kingdoms, I would ask you how you could consider your kin much better. Liars and assassinations, usurpers and mad men, wars as large as all of Tamerial. I put before you that the races of men, mer and beast are worse in nature than either instinctive creates or the Dov, as they combine the primal want to survive with the Dov want to rule, and as they are so weak in body, they must make use of feeble tactics to get what they want. We Dov are straightforward, we rule these lands because we are the strongest and the swiftest and the smartest, and because we want to, humans want things for a variety of foolish and insane reasons, all of which they justify with further madness."

Krensolghorot had moved closer to Aela, the end of her long snout almost touching Aela's belly. "So tell me, what is so unworthy about making use of my skills, of my perfect form, to rule in the manner of which I see fit?"

"Because it bores you." The words had left Aela's lips without conscious thought, but it made the dragonness blink and as Aela's mind had continued to race, she found the truth in her own thoughts. "You burn villages, and destroy lives, and the 'joor'," -the word had tasted terrible on her tongue- "who survive flee these lands, and you know there are armies being built elsewhere to try and stop you."

"Let them come!" Krensolghorot had interrupted, something very close to glee in her voice. "Let them know the might of their betters!"

"And what then?!" she shouted over the roars of approval "If you survive the onslaught, if you lay waste to the armies of men and mer and beast, what happens then? Any who remain will flee into hiding, only a few mad joor will willingly bow to you, willingly serve you, all others with vanish, deep into the old forgotten homes of the dwemer, into boats that sail across the world, into the plains of Oblivion! We are not the lost race of forgotten children we were when Alduin enslaved us! You will have a world emptied of nothing but Dov and animals, and a few simpering joor who hold no interest to you! You will rule an empty land!"

Krensolghorot had snorted. "I do not see a problem with the world you propose."

"You do not? A world with nothing but cowering beasts and bickering Dov? What would you do in a world like that? How often would you burn the last remnants of old joor structures before you grew bored? How often would catching a meal be thrilling? What would you do, day after day, for millennia? What would you discuss with your fellow dov? How the weather fairs? How the mammoth herds taste? How many hundreds of years would pass in a quiet land, no challenges, no new intellect or entertainment, before you would go mad?" she had swallowed hard.

There had been a long moment of silence then, the only sound being the whistle of the wind against the mountain.

"Tricky little Grohiik, very tricky, and clever. Admirably trying to protect your race…"

Krensolghorot had rumbled in her throat again, and moved even closer, coiling her neck in a wide arc around Aela so that she was enclosed in a circle of gold. "But you have made an interesting point, so tell me... do you see any other way the destiny of this world could unfold?"

Aela had let out a breath at the closeness of the dragoness, her huge head now alongside Aela's body and one burnished silver eye -the whole thing the size of Aela's face- staring at her. "Use… your intellect instead. The, Dov, have been conquers once before, and it ended with you destruction, if you are the most intelligent race, prove it. Take control not with shouts, but with clever words, offer alliances to the races below, offer them their way of life in return for…. Tribute, for entertainment, food and music and anything you want-"

One huge wing had come around to complete the circle in which she found herself entrapped. "You are thinking like a joor with power, one who wants to regain some semblance of loyalty from their lessers, not something I need. Why offer when I can simply threaten?"

"Threatening will bring more fear, more reason for people to plan against you-"

"They will do so anyway, Joor are predictable creatures."

"But more of them might be willing to accept an offer, if you are clever and you speak with skill. If you make yourself seem to be willing to stem the destruction, to forge some kind of peace-"

A deep rumble in the dragonness throat was assuredly a growl, and it made Aela's very bones shake. Her child, an ever present flurry of activity, stilled in her womb.

"You would have me make promises of safety and good will, towards joor!" Krentsolghorot hissed, coiling herself tighter around Aela. "Let them live on in peace and restrain my dov from their born right! For some mortal amusement and idle conversation!"

"I-"

"You would turn me into a joor king at best! To sit idle on this mountain and let the world move on as it has done for thousands of years! To let joor grow strong again, strong and bold enough to attack the dov! We will not allow the joor to rise again!"

A chorus of rumbling growls around her had shaken the ground beneath her feet, snow on the mountain side sloughed off with a whispering sound.

"Then threaten!" Aela had cried desperately, the wild biting at her exposed face and her eyes burning with unshed tears. "Threaten them to do as you ask, but be reasonable about your demands! Take what you want without leaving them with nothing! If they have nothing to lose, they will come after you, but if you leave them enough to live for, then you have all the control without burning the land to ash!"

Krentsolghorot had quieted at her words and blinked once, and then spoke with an amount of interest that left Aela's blood cold. "Ah, now there's a more intriguing prospect. You are quite the clever one Mal Grohiik, almost Dovah…. Hmmmmm…." She'd uncoiled her neck from her circle of entrapment, huge head coming up to over look the far away valley floor below. "It would still be playing a joor game, gives and takes and little mind games…. But simple destruction is only amusing for so long." With an odd adjustment of her jaw that was painfully reminiscent of the woman she had once been, Krentsolghorot had glanced down at Aela again. "So you think you can see a world where Dov and Joor live together? Perhaps you hope to tame my heart and create a new world in which we are all equal?"

Aela had tightened her fingers into her palm but said nothing.

"I will save you the trouble and the pain of waiting," Krentsolghorot lowered her head to that her huge mouth was very near Aela's ear, as if to share a secret, "such a world will _never _come to pass."

She'd moved her whole body back with a serpentine speed that didn't seem capable with her massive size, but she kept her snout on the same level as Aela. "But you have proposed something of much interest to me, so I will…. alter, my plans for this world and the joor. No sense wasting things if there is something to be gained, even if it is of little value. As for you…."

Aela's heart had jolted and her breath came out in as hiss, burning fear spreading along her skin as her wolf howled and writhed. She had no escape; the dragons were much too fast even if she had been in peak condition, but with a belly heavy with child…

"You have impressed me Mal Grohiik, not an easy feat. And more than that, you have interested and entertained me. You are brave, foolishly so, but still brave and amusingly hopeful. And you do carry an interesting future within you; perhaps the joor child of a Dovahkiin will have some dovah in her as well."

Her arm came up to encircle her belly without conscience thought, and she had felt her baby stir again at the contact.

Krentsolghorot's massive mouth cracked in a smile, or at least as close as a dragon mouth could get to smiling. "Yes, perhaps a little something different will keep things interesting, and after all if I'm going to rule over all joor, and do so by playing by a few joor ideals, I believe the joor tradition is to have a coupled ruler."

In a long sweeping motion, Krentsolghorot had twisted her head over her back and closed her maw over one of her long golden spines, each of which looked as sharp as a freshly smithed skyforged steel blade. With a quick twist of her head and a teeth jarring 'SNAP', the dragoness broke the spine from her back. As she turned her head back around, Aela had heard her grumble something deep in her throat. The sound lower than a growl, but still rumbling the air with the power of the thu'um.

'_Yol vrii frein!'_

Blue-silver fire flicker between Krentsolghorot's fangs, washing over the glittering spine she held aloft and causing it to bend, and then melt in her maw. Shimmering and sizzling, it dripped down her muzzle and some of it splattered into the show, hissing angrily and creating great streams of steam.

"From this moment," Krentsolghorot spoke, her tongue and teeth coated in liquid gold. "You serve me, you and all of your descendents will stand as my connection to the joor world below, to provide me with mortal insight and to communicate my will to the joor when I cannot. In return, you and all those of your blood are under my protection, no Dovah will ever harm you, and other creatures that try to will be torn down with all the fury of the dov, you will be safe in mind and body, for as long as you shall live."

Aela had taken a step back and raised one hand in protest, "I-"

Krentsolghorot darted forward and arched her huge form over Aela, muzzle pointed directly down at her, and then she shouted.

"_Miir Ungol Unstiid!"_

Blistering gold crashed over her, coating every inch of her body, and Aela screamed. The blazing liquid oozing under her clothes and clutching her skin so tight she thought it would rip from her bones. It slithered down her body like a living thing down her back and breasts, across her belly and down her legs, leaving bright painful trails of pain that she desperately clawed at, her fingers catching on solidifying ridges of something that did not come from her own body.

She screamed again, the burning across her body fading away as the blistering lines _blazed _and began to cut down into her skin.

The heat and the pressure abruptly stopped, leaving her whole frame shaking in roaring agony; then her world went black, and she knew no more.

Pain had been her first clue that she still lived when she awoke an indiscernible amount of hours later. Her whole body nothing but throbbing pain, a deep ache across her skin and down into her muscles, a fresh and overpowering bite that lay in oddly perfect lines and screamed out with each small motion she made.

Through her agony addled mind bolted a fresh terror, and her hands had flown to her belly, ignoring the screeching anguish as she made contact with her own body.

Her mind pleaded to the divines, to the daedra, anyone with any ounce of power, _'please, please….' _Until her almost numb fingers felt a hesitant fluttering. The tiny motion bringing new ache across her belly, but she felt only relief. She sobbed softly, overwhelmed and drained, and brought a hand up to wipe at her eyes, only to freeze at what she saw.

Gold, pure glittering gold buried into the skin of her hand, criss-crossing and weaving into intricate lines that moved down her wrist and across her forearm. Her breath coming in short gasps, Aela had yanked on the now charred and torn sleeve, pulling it up and starting down at the lines that continued up 'till her shoulder.

Fingers coming up and brushing across her collarbone, her neck, her face, she realized with dawning horror that her whole body was marked. That these 'brands', as there was no other word for them where the lines of pain that cut into her.

"So you are awake."

She started horribly, suddenly very aware of where she was, her body laying down across what felt like a warm flexible sheet the color of blood. Tt coiled up on either side, one side extending up and overhead, shielding her from the sky.

Her cracked lips had parted. "Where?"

Her resting place shifted, the fleshy surface lowering and then spreading out underneath her back, weak sunlight spilling into her face.

"At the human temple, in the courtyard. After you lost consciousness Krentsolghorot told me to take you here, and to protect you from the cold until you awoke."

Aela had blinked rapidly until her eyesight had adjusted, and found herself staring up at a brilliant red scaled dragon.

"Odahviing?" she whispered hoarsely, realizing that it was in his wing that she had been cradled.

"Geh, I serve the Soul Stealer as I once served the World Eater and the last Dragonborn." He replied idly.

"I- what, what did she do to me?" Aela tried shifting into a sitting position against the dragon's wing, but the pain was too great.

"She has marked you, claimed you as her 'ward', it is as she proclaimed, you are safe now."

"Safe?" Aela's throat was too raw to cry out, and the word cracked as it slipped past her lips.

"Geh, though I understand why you would question that, the claiming thu'um is not a pleasant experience. I don't know if it will be of much comfort, but I can assure you that there has not been a fatality from that thu'um. It would rather defeat the purpose."

Aela's chest heaved as she forced herself up, managing to fight through the pain and regain her feet.

"And now what? I am a toy for an uncaring monster? A marked slave to come when called? Why would she do this…" her voice had broken, and it had taken all her strength not to fall to her knees and weep.

Odahviing had said nothing for a moment, then sighed. "You are what you choose to let yourself become. If you let yourself fade away, give up, you will become a slave, no better than the dragon priests of old, though your chains and theirs would differ. But perhaps if you continue your quest, if you play your part and speak true words…. Perhaps you can truly sway the course of the new world. Take heart, Mal Grohiik Kiim, all is not lost, you have your life and the life of your child, and you have the one thing that no other creature in all of Nirn could ever hope to."

She raised her face, not bothering to try and stop the silent tears falling from her eyes.

He breathed out a long breath and tilted his head, "You have the ear of the new dragon god, and with it, her protection." He turned from her and started to walk away from the temple door, "that has to count for something."

"Mal Grohiik Kiim?" she asked quietly, one hand reaching out to balance her unstable body against the black stone of the temple wall.

Odahviing paused and glanced over his back. "You've been claimed by the Dov, and as such, have been given a name, it translates to 'little wolf wife' in your tongue."

Bile burned bitter in her throat, but she swallowed it back to ask one last question. "Why are you being kind to me?"

His head turn back to his front, and he refused to look at her. "Much different as we are, I cannot help but admire your foolish bravery, and because of what you spoke of, the world of balance? That was once the dream of your Dragonborn, she spoke of it to me, and so did Paarthurnax, I had come to believe such a world could exist, and now I mourn its loss." He spread his wings. "if there is any creature in this world who might have the power to bring some form of that world into creation, it would be you, Aela the Huntress."

And then he had swept his wings and taken back to the skies, leaving Aela alone on the doorstep of her new home.

"_Mal Grohiik Kiim."_

The rumbling of her name jerked her back to the present, away from the old memories and their pain.

"Yes?" she asked dully, breaking eye contact and studying the dragonesses' back spines instead.

"You are rather lost in thought today, has there been some word from below that troubles you?" Krentsolghorot leaned her long neck around her back and grinned darkly. "Some whisper of treason? Is there a gathering of joor who need a fresh lesson?"

"No, my lady, nothing of the sort," she hesitated and then. "It's the anniversary of the day I first came to the mountain top to see you, I just got lost in the memory."

"Ah I see," Krentsolghorot sounded disappointed. "Well, that's an interesting marker of time I suppose. But come, I did bring you here to discuss a few problems."

"Problems, my Lady?"

"Geh, it seems as though the joor town of Dawnstar hasn't been up keeping their mammoth herds for my dov as well as they should, tell me, what do you think is an appropriate punishment for them?"

It was only the image of Lifa's smiling face that kept her from an angry retaliation, from a string of curses and accusations. It was her daughter's life that kept her playing the role of mediator between dovah and joor. Even if she was in reality little more than a executioner in her own right.

A safe life, for the payment of a free life.

She had begun to think she couldn't remember what the latter even felt like anymore.

But she took a breath, and began to work.

* * *

_Yol vrii frein  
_Fire scale melt

_Miir Ungol Unstiid  
_Mark Mine Always

_Mal Grohiik Kiim  
_Little Wolf Wife


End file.
